Prof Merridale told the Telegraph academics are going to struggle to write such thorough books in the future, with the best-researched tomes carrying the same weight as short peer-reviewed journal articles under a new funding assessment framework.

She added she was “delighted” the Wolfson prize had been recognising excellent in academia for 42 years, with her “unexpected” win leaving her thrilled.

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Prof Broodbank, whose prize-winning book examines the history of the Mediterranean from “the beginning to the emergence of the classical world”, added historians now have an obligation to share their carefully-researched work with the public.

The pair have become the joint winners of the Wolfson History Prize, selected as the best “readable and scholarly” history books of 2013.

Both accepted their awards at a ceremony in Claridge’s, London, although neither have yet decided what to do with the substantial prize money.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Prof Merridale used her win to highlight the pressures now faced by historians, who are assessed by their universities for the number of peer-reviewed articles they publish.

“Academics are going to have a lot of trouble writing serious books like this in the future because of the way the universities are run,” she said. “They are going to become rarities and that’s a great shame.”

She added producing a full-length book, which can take years of research, only carried the same weight as a short journal article, leaving academics rushing to submit more manageable papers under the new Research Excellence Framework.

Prof Broodbank, who is currently Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, said he believed historians must now work to connect their specialisms with the public.

“For me, there really seems to be an urgent and growing need to encourage academics to reach out beyond history to the broader public,” he said.

“The questions we are really have to solve often require a broader basis of knowledge and understanding of the history than is available from a lot of decision-makers today.”

When asked how best to convey history to a general public, he argued: “My view is that the intelligent public are not looking for the sensationalised fare of dumbed-down academe. They want something slightly more subtle and complex.

“I think in a sense, we’re often patronising the public by assuming they want it sensationalised and pandering to that instead of saying the reality is more interesting.

“In archaeology, it’s become all about discovery; the Indiana Jones syndrome. Archaeology has been projected for too long as fetishizing discovery. I’m always asked what the best thing I’ve ever found, which seems a shame.”

He added: “I think people are deeply concerned about the present and the future. The extraordinary speeding up of change, there is a strong sense we need a deeper understanding of the past.”

Paul Ramsbottom, chief executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said he believed the winning books perfectly captured the “scholarly perspective” while still being books “you want to take to the beach”.

He said: “These books are worthy winners in the long tradition of the Wolfson History Prize - a Prize which celebrates outstanding history written in a lively and accessible way.”